Radhakrishnan, is ranked 23, Jones 25 and Coffey, who is standing in Rotorua, is at 30.

As expected leader David Cunliffe and his deputy take out the top two slots, followed by Grant Robertson, Annette King, Jacinda Ardern and Nanaia Mahuta, who is the top-ranked Maori MP.

Maungakiekie candidate Carol Beaumont has slipped from 22 to 26.

NOT ON LIST

Curran, the Dunedin South MP, was ranked 28 in 2011 but was not on today's list. She would not comment beyond a short statement this afternoon.

"I made a decision to withdraw from the list. I'm focused on winning Dunedin South for Labour and a hundred per cent committed to campaigning for the party vote. Not just in Dunedin but across the region, Otago-Southland region. And that's all I'm saying, okay?"

Mallard, the Hutt South MP, said he made the decision not go on on the list before the moderating committee met "in order to give people like Kelvin [Davis] a chance to be higher".

He said he did not pull his name based on where he expected to be put, saying his caucus ranking of 17 out of 34 MPs gave an indication of where he would fit on the list.

The decision was made in light of this year's changes to electorate boundaries which he says caused him to lose "more than half" of his 4825 majority in Hutt South.

"I've never ever taken an electorate for granted but I also really like being a constituency MP and only being a list one has no appeal at all."

'OUTSTANDING GROUP'

Party president Moira Coatsworth said the list was ''an outstanding group of talented New Zealanders".

"The party's renewal and the number of skilled candidates meant that the biggest challenge was having to rank 64 people of such high calibre. We are excited by the skilled, experienced people we expect to join our Caucus team."

Cunliffe said he was delighted at the ''fantastic array of talented candidates''.

On Twitter at least some were excited about the diversity of the list.

Prime Minister John Key National would not be introducing a gender quota to its list selection.

"I don't think that would be appropriate. In the end we're going to try and attract the best quality candidates to stand for National. I hope there are good mixtures of men and women who chose to do that, just like there's a good mixture of ages and ethnicities, but in the end we want to select people on the basis of ability and what they bring to Parliament," he said.

"I think if the basis of solely bringing someone in because they're a male or a female, it's disrespectful to that person and I don't think it's the right way to go."

If the electorate system meant mainly white men became candidates, Key said the MMP system allowed for the list to be used "to make sure that balance is rectified".

Key said he was not surprised that a number of current MPs had elected not to go on Labour's list.

"I suspect their motivations are that they know their rankings won't be terribly high.

Nothing surprised him about Labour's list "other than someone would really want to be on it".